Melanie Santiago, MBA
Melanie Santiago is a communications and marketing professional, small business owner, and creative strategist with more than a decade of experience helping organizations strengthen culture, improve communication, and elevate their brands. Based in the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia region, she is the co-founder of Twin Raven Marketing, a women-owned agency she launched in 2020 with her longtime collaborator and former classmate. Through her work, Melanie has built a reputation for combining empathy, creativity, and strategic thinking to help both small businesses and executive teams communicate with greater clarity and impact.
Melanie’s career began with a passion for art and design. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design with a minor in marketing from The University of Southern Mississippi, followed by an MBA in Marketing. Early in her career, she joined a marketing department that supported more than 20 companies across multiple industries, gaining experience in branding, social media, digital campaigns, event planning, and graphic design. That fast-paced environment gave her exposure to a wide range of businesses and helped accelerate her growth as a marketer and creative leader. She later expanded into freelance work before co-founding Twin Raven Marketing, where she has spent the last several years serving small business clients across the country.
Today, Melanie’s expertise is increasingly centered on internal communications, leadership support, and organizational culture. In addition to her agency work, she serves as a Senior Digital Communications Specialist for the State of Connecticut, where she leads communication strategies tied to major organizational transformation initiatives. She is known for her ability to translate complex ideas into accessible, engaging messages and for helping leaders build trust, alignment, and stronger teams. With roots in graphic design and a growing focus on executive communication and facilitation, Melanie continues to blend creativity with strategy to make a lasting impact on the organizations she serves.
• Google Certifications in Digital Marketing
• Leadership Effectiveness Analysis 360 Suite
• The University of Southern Mississippi- M.B.A.
• The University of Southern Mississippi- B.F.A.
• Summa Cum Laude
• Presidential Scholar
• Beta Gamma Sigma
• National Collegiate Scholar
• Beta Gamma Sigma
• Sustainability Club
• SGI-USA
• AIGA
• Buddhist Organization Young Women's Leader
• Big Brothers Big Sisters
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute much of my success to mentorship and early opportunities, especially the encouragement and job connection I received from my marketing professor early in my career. Building strong relationships and earning the trust of executive teams has also played a major role in helping me grow professionally.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received came from my marketing professor, Dr. Foster, who encouraged me to pursue my MBA and think bigger about my long-term potential. She also connected me with an early job opportunity that became a major turning point in my career.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Bring seriousness to the table and take yourself seriously. Something I found early in my career when I worked in a marketing department right out of school, it was all female, and I find that marketing in particular tends to be women-dominated, and because of that, people will not take us as seriously sometimes. I don't know if that's just because of regional things, I was in the Deep South, but I think that I really benefited from bringing a level of seriousness to my role. Still have fun and still be creative, but also bring a level of seriousness, bring authority almost. Bring recommendations and really lean into your expertise. Remember that you come with knowledge to bring. You bring this expertise and this energy, especially at the beginning of your career. It's something that people are looking for all the time with marketing because it's so leaning on youth. You really want to capture that young audience. Just lean into your expertise and really bring some seriousness, some authority to the role, especially as a young woman, because I do think that you have the extra layer of that stereotype or bias against us.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think the biggest challenge is understanding how to harness AI, because that's rapidly changing and really impacting the marketing space. There's a push and pull between really honoring and respecting and valuing the work of the creative, and then also trying to keep up with the fact that AI is quick. Marketing is always a quickly moving industry because you're keeping up with and trying to understand what's going on in consumer behavior, but with AI, it's very uncertain. So I would say it's just understanding and getting a good foundational learning in AI and trying to figure out how it fits in my business practice. That's probably my main challenge. Secondly, my co-owner and I live in two different states, and we have a strong client base in the state she's in, where I'm from, Mississippi, but I actually moved to Maryland a couple of years ago, and we just haven't had the opportunity. Now we're really entering this era of our business where we're going to try and really put in effort to build our client base out here. So those are the big challenges: understanding AI, how it fits within our business practices, and then building our client base in Maryland.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are building trust, serving and mentoring others, and showing up with professionalism and seriousness in everything I do. I believe strong relationships and a genuine commitment to helping others succeed are at the core of both meaningful work and personal fulfillment.